Search

Blogs

“The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

Cliff Hamilton

I hope that this update finds everyone doing well. Here’s the scoop. I turned 30 two months ago. Nothing changed as far as I can tell. Melissa and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary in June. We traveled up to Ocoee, Tennessee and went white water rafting and spent the night at a bed and breakfast that has llamas, donkeys, goats, a horse, a camel, exotic birds, and a bunch of dogs. It was such a blessing and a really fun trip. In about four weeks time our eldest daughter, Kate, will be starting kindergarten. This will be a big change for us and we are both excited and nervous for this next parenting step. I continue to work for my brother-in-law, Ned, doing construction and home improvement. It is a constant learning experience and I find that I enjoy working with my hands. I will also be working part-time for a local counseling agency in the next couple of weeks. I have talked about this in previous updates and it seems like it has been dragging along for quite a while, but when a process like this turns out so much different then what I expected I just rest assured that God’s hand is all over it. Melissa continues to tutor, and work for my director’s wife, Sue, who does health coaching. Things seem to be moving forward steadily and pretty soon we will be into the school year and out of the summer. Which I don’t know what it has been like where all of you live, but I will be glad to get rid of the triple digit temperatures.

At the end of May we held our Pastor’s appreciation dinner for one of the Pastor’s group that Phil works with. It was a good time for our Grace Valley team to get together and fellowship with these pastors outside of a group setting. It was blessed with great fellowship and some good praise as well. One of the most important aspects of holding this dinner was to be able to meet these pastor’s wives and begin to forge a relationship with them and get ideas from them for how we might go about serving them. The dinner gave us a good bit of affirmation as well as some things to think about in how we serve our population of ministry families in the future.

Grace Valley also held a board meeting the first week of June. We were able to fellowship and discuss our progress and directions for the near future. We also had a couple sit in on the board meeting who are contemplating joining the Grace Valley team in a possible Board role or even in a ministry position. One of our board members also opened their recently acquired Florida vacation home to be used occasionally for ministry workers who are in burn out or crisis. By the grace of God it was able to be coordinated for a struggling pastor and his family to already take use of this vacation home opportunity. Over the past two months we have also completed the next phase of our outdoor restroom facility on the Grace Valley property. It now has walls, doors, and a roof. I had a pretty significant hand in building this facility and encourage you to check out the pictures of it on our website (I personally think it is national park worthy).

In other developments, the downstairs apartment at Phil’s house has been vacated by his daughter and son-in-law, who found and bought a house, and can now be used for ministry workers who are in need of respite and care. This is an especially neat period of growth for Grace Valley as we now have our first full time retreat cabin for ministry use, and we are in the process of finishing our first big building project on the Grace Valley property with the outdoor restroom. There are pictures of both the restroom and the apartment facilities on our website.

Please join us in prayer this month for:

God’s provision and wisdom in the leadership of the current pastors’ groups and in the building and management of a new cohort of groups

God’s continued blessing financially for ourselves and our ministry partners and for our ability to continue to grow our ministry

Our being continually renewed with God’s perspective for our lives and for this ministry

God providing us with the time and the means to make it back to Memphis this summer to see our family and friends

Blessing for the transition for our entire family for when Kate is in school full time

Immediate ministry support for our Grace Valley general fund so we can begin the finishing work on the outdoor restroom

God to show us how he is going to provide the means to acquire and begin developing the property so we can start receiving pastors for restoration from crisis

Thank all of you so much for your prayers and support. I pray that y’all are having a restful and fun time this summer. So often I do not know why I receive a blessing that I have not prayed for, and then I remember that I have lots of people who are praying for blessings in my life that I haven’t even thought of. Keep up the good work, I need it. I hope that you all have a fantastic summer and that those of you who will be traveling are blessed with much mercy and grace.

Happy end of April, everyone. I say happy because now we can look forward to May flowers, and in a week’s time my starting a new decade. That’s right folks, yours truly will be turning the big 3-0 in a week from this Monday. I normally wouldn’t make a big deal out of my birthday in an update letter, but this particular birthday has made me think about my life more than most. As I turn 30 I think I am supposed to feel more mature, older, and have a better grasp on “life.” I believe I do feel “older” than I did when I turned 20, but I definitely don’t feel like I have a better grasp on “life.” As I look back I think I might have a bit of a better understanding of life now than I did, but as far as how to live it out in a way that is truly in unison with all of what “life” actually is, I’m at a loss. And I wonder as I write this whether or not that grasp of life will even come at 40 or 50 or 60, or if I will just continually and slowly grow in my understanding of it. Which leads me to believe that we aren’t supposed to be able to grasp this life. That as much as I see others who are better off financially, or spiritually, or more mature, or making more “big” decisions than I am, at the end of the day they still come back to the place of wondering what they can do next to get a better “grasp” on this life. It seems to me that God has made us in a way and that we have fallen in such a way that we are not supposed to be able to “grasp” this life, and we are actually supposed to be “grasping” for another life…The fulfilled life that Christ has waiting for us after this one, after the one in which we cannot experience fulfillment or “completeness.” Well…That is my brilliant 30th birthday thought, and now I will try and move forward with my update letter and refrain as much as possible from using more quotations to signify large overreaching concepts.

Kate and Maggie are doing well. We are continuously watching Maggie grow in her ability to communicate and surprise us daily with her new understandings of her world. Kate is already too big and will be getting ready to enroll in big girl school in a few months. That is a transition that I don’t believe we truly can appreciate yet. What it will mean to have her presence absent from our lives from 7:30 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon Monday thru Friday will be difficult to get used to, and even more so with the interaction Maggie will miss from it. Melissa is still tutoring and helping our ministry partner Sue manage some of the logistics of her Health Coaching business. I have been working with my brother-in-law Ned in his home improvement business, which so far has been a really fun and interesting skill to learn. Thank all of you who were praying about the State of Georgia approving my associate license for professional counseling. From what I have heard it doesn’t sound all that common, but they actually approved my associate license at the very first Revue Board meeting I was eligible for. I will soon be finalizing an employee contract with a counseling practice and begin working on obtaining the hours for full licensure. The Lord has blessed us with the ways to meet our financial needs up to this point one way or another. And as uncomfortable as it has been at times, God has never allowed us to go beyond what we could bear or left us without. His blessing and faithfulness truly has been renewed day by day in our lives.

The ministry is still growing at a steady pace. Although a new pastors’ group has not begun recently we have very promising leads and interest from a number of people and areas north of Atlanta that could see as many as 3 or 4 new groups form in the very near future. We also were able to finish the second stage of the outdoor restroom which will allow us to complete its construction in the next month. I have not yet had counseling opportunities, but I am looking forward to the growth God is preparing for me in pursuing my counseling licensure. We have seen how God has prepared each of us through our lives to be a part of this ministry and how he continues to prepare us in our daily walk to be able to effectively carry out the ministry into the future. At the end of May we are hosting a pastors’ dinner that will allow us to meet with a group of pastors and their wives. We are hoping that we will be able to take in a lot of information about how our ministry can care for wives of pastors. That is what has been going on this past month, and I look forward to being able to report on all of the results of the events we have going on in May.

Please pray this month for:

God’s provision and wisdom in the leadership of the current pastors’ groups and in the building and management of a new cohort of groups

God’s provision of patience, growth, and a teachable spirit as I begin working with clients in the near future

God’s continued blessing financially for ourselves and our ministry partners and for our ability to continue to grow our ministry

Our being continually renewed with God’s perspective for our lives and for this ministry

God providing us with the time and the means to make it back to Memphis this summer to see our family and friends

God’s provision of our ministry with clarity for how we can minister to the wives of pastors

God to show us how he is going to provide the means to acquire and begin developing the property so we can start receiving pastors for restoration from crisis

I know this update has taken on a completely different tone from the last one. I cannot express my gratitude and thanks enough to all of you out there who are praying for us. I have been blessed a lot this past month in my spirit and encouragement. As awkward and uncomfortable it made me to write my last update, I see what a blessing it is to be humbled and be open to the power of prayer in difficult and even embarrassing situations. I cannot put into words or say what events took place to encourage me or lift up my spirit, but I do know it is a direct answer and effect from your prayers. I pray that God would also fill all of you up with encouragement and lifted spirits that would leave you without question that it is directly from His hand. Thank you for all of your love and support and I hope that I have the opportunity to bless you back with some in the future.

Welcome to my end of the year/new year update. It has been three and a half months since I last sent out an update. I’m sorry for the delay, but am looking forward to sending out monthly updates again for the New Year.

So what have we missed? Maggie turned 2 on November 22nd. She has grown leaps and bounds over the last couple of months and is beginning to talk a lot more. Kate is also growing and acting more and more mature every day…And she just lost her FIRST tooth! It is so much fun to be able to witness and experience the new insights of my children as they happen. Melissa, the kids and I went to Memphis for Christmas and had a great time hanging out with my family and getting to see everybody from out of town. Once we got back to Canton, a week went by and it was Melissa’s “??nd” birthday. Things continue to roll along and life does not seem to slow down in spite of my own efforts.

Grace Valley has also been coming along quite a bit recently. During November we completed the first stage of building a nice two-room outhouse on the property for when we have large gatherings on the property. Our director Phil has started one more group and is already in the works of spreading a few more out in the area. Grace Valley recently partnered with Barnabas Ministries to place our Pastor’s groups under their national umbrella. The partnership will allow us to achieve greater visibility and networking while maintaining the mission of Grace Valley. If you are interested to learn more, please search for Barnabas Ministries on the web. Through these groups we have experienced and visibly seen how we are impacting the local community of pastors. I continue to be a part of our Youth Pastor’s group that meets every other week. As is often the case, I imagine, I feel more blessed by being a part of the group than what I feel I can bring to it. We just had one of our tri-annual (if that is a word) Grace Valley Board meetings. It was a blessing to be together, fellowship, and discuss Grace Valley with people who are so personally invested in this ministry.

Now, to confession. It has taken so long to write to you because I have really been feeling ineffective which in turn has led me to be very unmotivated. I have really been struggling with trusting God’s goodness and timing in my life. I know God has me where he wants me, but I do not feel his leading in any specific direction right now other than being patient. And that is a frustratingly regular theme in my life. Apparently I am a slow learner. So what do I have to be patient for? I am still waiting to sort out getting an apprentice license for counseling in the State of Georgia so I can join a local practice and start working towards full licensure. In the meantime I am trying to find a part-time job to help make ends meet until I can start working for this counseling practice. It has been a struggle to make ends meet and that has started to create stress in most areas of our life. Right now we really need prayer for God to help us stay positive and the ability to look to the many blessings we can be thankful for. And that would lead into praying for my ability to give so many of the unknowns of our current situation up to God so that I can stop worrying about the “what if’s” and “maybes”. Melissa has been able to get a couple of more students for SAT tutoring lately which has helped. We knew this would be a part of our journey coming out here to be a part of this ministry; now it is just figuring out how to live within it the best we can knowing full well that this is part of God’s plan for our life right now (which includes humbling ourselves to trust God’s plan). We ask y’all to pray that God would provide for our immediate needs, but more importantly that we would be able to handle the stress that living this way has created.

Here is our prayer list for this month:

That God would continue to bless our pastors groups and the relationships that are being built through them

That God would help me make tangible progress in my search for part-time counseling work

That God would give us encouragement and perspective in our personal frustrations

That I would seek God’s counsel before my own

That through part-time work and/or support we would be able to afford health care for our family in the near future

That God would help us to nurture our personal and family walk with him

That God would bless Grace Valley as we look to plan for Spring events

That God would begin to provide the ways and means to acquire and begin developing the property so we can start receiving pastors for restoration from crisis

This has been a pretty difficult update letter to write. It is not easy to relate the feelings and shortcomings I have personally experienced over the past few months. I say this because I truly want to strive to be as open and honest with those of you who support and pray for us. Not only am I trying to be a part of supporting and caring for the leaders of God’s people, but as I am doing this I am acutely aware of my own personal need for the same prayer, support, and encouragement networks that I am trying to provide. This task is so large and I am so quick to place the burden on myself rather than putting myself and my pursuits in the able hands of our Lord. These feelings and challenges, emotionally and spiritually, are very new to me and I ask you lift me up to God in prayer for my continued guidance by his hand. It is not often that I find myself aware of your presence out there in the world around me and the knowledge that you are lifting me up to the Lord in prayer, but as I am aware of it at this very second I can’t tell you how much I am thankful for your steadfast faithfulness in asking the Lord’s blessing in my life. I hope that all of you are encouraged this month and that God will speak to your hearts and help you to find peace, encouragement and blessing in this New Year. I would love to hear from you by phone or e-mail if you have any questions, comments or just want to catch up.

We are wrapping up our fourth month here in Canton, GA! The leaves are turning beautiful colors and falling all over the ground and the cold fronts are moving through. Next time I write an update it will be after Thanksgiving and in the midst of shopping season madness. Our first major family holiday as permanent residents here in Canton. There have been lots of goings on this past month, so let’s move on.

Last time I wrote we had taken a trip to Memphis to get Kate’s dental appliance checked out (helping correct an under bite). I believe it was the night we got back the appliance popped partially out of her mouth. God gave us grace in that it did not hurt Kate and we were able to find a new pediatric dentist to go to the following day. It has subsequently been removed and the dentist is checking her teeth periodically to make sure her teeth don’t move back to an under bite. The past three weeks have been a mass of birthday planning (Kate is now the big 5) and parties. We had a really fun time celebrating Kate’s birthday here in Canton. She got lots of great presents, but I believe the best present she got was for her cousin Elizabeth to come and spend the week with her. We met my mother and sister in Murfreesboro, TN and picked up Elizabeth and got to spend some quality time with part of my family. We drove back up to TN last week to “joyfully” (did I just say that?) give my niece back to my sister. But in all honesty it is such a privilege to get to know my niece at such a young age and have these personal experiences with her. I know we will look back and cherish these times as our kids get older. Now that Big Sister’s party is over we have to start thinking about what to do for Little Sister’s birthday…Yes, Maggie will be turning 2 on November 22. Is this really happening? I’m beginning to figure out that there is no better gauge of how time flies than by how fast my kids’ birthdays go by. Personally I am trying to adjust to the days getting shorter and figuring out how to manage myself as “The Season” is getting closer. Something about the holidays makes time and stress management just fly out the window.

Grace Valley is also moving along quite well. Since the last time we “talked” we had a Grace Valley Board Meeting. Our Board members from all over the Southeast (Florida and the Atlanta area) came up to Canton and had a great day of fellowship and discussions on future directions of the ministry. It was such a blessing and encouragement to get together with Brothers and Sisters in Christ who have taken hold of the vision of Grace Valley and to be able to work beside them.

Our Pastors’ groups are doing very well. Phil has experienced deeper fellowship and openness within the two groups of lead pastors he meets with, and the youth pastors’ group is also going well. We added another pastor to the group and I was able to lead the group solo a couple of weeks ago while Phil was at a National/International pastor’s conference, Catalyst, in Atlanta. It was a great experience for me to engage these pastors without the safety net of Phil’s experience by my side. We hope to continue to develop my ability and skills to facilitate this group and others like it in the future.

We also had a meeting with a missionary counselor, Beverly Richardson, who we are hoping to partner with in the future to provide counseling, debriefing, and transition services for the missionaries we will serve in our ministry. It was a very good meeting and we are looking forward to developing our future partnership with Beverly in order to provide more comprehensive and relevant services to missionaries seeking help. Beverly has been a full time missionary in the field and is currently wrapping up a full-time missionary counseling position she has held in Thailand so that she can live closer to her family in the Atlanta area.

I was able to finish a first draft of our counseling philosophy, and will be tweaking and adding material to it over the coming weeks in order to put a finished product on our website. I will also be developing a counseling policy document to more clearly define our expectations of Ministry workers who seek our help and what expectations they should have of us.

During the winter months we will not be holding organized events on the Grace Valley property, but are looking for ways to prepare for events we will hold in the spring. One of the things we are trying to do is build an outhouse on the property so we can provide attendees with an accessible and adequate bathroom facility. One of the pastors from Phil’s groups got inspired about this project and has volunteered people, preparation and resources in order for us to accomplish this. It seems like something simple, but God is already blessing us with the means and people to build our first building on the Grace Valley property.

Personally, I feel Melissa and I are still adjusting to life at her parents’ home and in Canton. With my work being non-traditional and Melissa not working full-time for the first time in seven years it has been a stretch to find balance and routine in our lives. But in truth, God has blessed us more than I could have ever imagined in our move here. Our girls have adapted extremely well to the move and God has allowed us to ease into living with Melissa’s parents with abundant grace. When I think about the little things that I haven’t gotten used to and the routines I haven’t developed yet, I’m amazed at the number of things that I could be dealing with that God has blessed us with not having to worry about right now. Not to mention the fact that God has provided renters for our house, unexpected donations, and little jobs here and there to help us make ends meet. Next month I hope to have more news on my own search for part-time counseling work and our plans for the holidays.

Here is our prayer list for this month:

That God would continue to bless our pastors groups and the relationships that are being built through them

That God would help me make tangible progress in my search for part-time counseling work

That God would give us energy and encouragement throughout the holidays and the winter months

That we would be able to develop relationships and community in the building of our outhouse

That through part-time work and/or support we would be able to afford health care for our family in the near future

That God would help us to nurture our personal and family walk with him

That God would begin to provide the ways and means to acquire and begin developing the property so we can start receiving pastors for restoration from crisis

I want to praise God for the ease and safety in which we have been able to complete our move thus far. I also want to praise God for my ability to go to a men’s retreat with Christ Community Church and the relationships I was able to begin to develop through that. Praise God for our family and the blessing of having so many of them be in personal relationship with Christ…It is profound how God has blessed both Melissa and I’s families with an abundance of believers. And as hectic and stressful as this season can be, praise God for the fellowship we will experience and the remembrance of why we are here. I hope that all of you are encouraged this month and that God will speak to your hearts and help you to be a beacon of his grace. I would love to hear from you by phone or e-mail if you have any questions, comments or just want to catch up. Don’t forget to check out my blog at www.gracevalleyministries.org over the coming weeks if you would like to stay up to date on what’s going on until my next update (I actually do plan on blogging as soon as I stop procrastinating).

Wow, has it really been three months already? One great thing about Georgia is that it has felt like fall for the past two weeks. We’ve been sleeping with the windows open and it has been dreadfully difficult getting out of bed in the mornings because it has been so cold. Well, on to the news.

We had a successful trip to Memphis over Labor Day weekend. We were there for Kate’s dental appointment, which went well. We were able to see my brother and sister-in-law from St. Louis and their two kids as well as my sister and her family. We had a large family cookout on Labor Day, which was a huge blessing seeing all of our family and reconnecting. It was definitely weird sleeping at my Mom’s house and being a part of the “out of towners” group. The Saturday after we returned to Georgia we held our Grace Valley “Morning of Solitude”. Talk about a blessing! Sitting out in the woods on a beautiful Saturday morning, listening to the stream roll over the stones, while immersing myself in God’s word, and praying and just letting myself be quiet to hear his “still small voice” was such an immeasurably valuable experience. We had a group of sixteen people attend and each one left feeling blessed by the time spent alone with God. If you have never attempted or been a part of something like this, or if you have experienced a time like this, I urge you to experience it for yourself and block out a time every month or quarterly where you can engage God in this way. We will be putting a link to the guide/information booklet that we made for this event on our Grace Valley website.

In other news, Phil and I started the youth/assistant pastor’s group. We will be meeting every other Thursday for the next six months. As of now we have four members in the group and are interviewing a few more youth pastors to put our group at six to eight members. The need is there in the community of ministry workers, and so far it has been expressed to us that it has been a much needed blessing. Phil will also be looking to start another pastor’s group in the west part of canton in the coming weeks.

My big tasks at the moment are to develop documents for our philosophy of counseling and the services we are able to offer at this time. I am excited about developing these and allowing people to see how we can serve them and how we view brokenness in life, but at the same time it is a large task and can become overwhelming without the proper perspective and much prayer. I hope it will help people feel more comfortable seeking out our services and bring visibility to our availability.

On a personal front we will hopefully begin renting our house in October. We have a lease agreement for a year with a wonderful couple that God blessed us with. At this point our only obstacle is to have our lender approve our decision to rent. Melissa’s tutoring is going well. She was selected from a large group of tutors to receive further training so she can do more specialized tutoring in the future (I am very proud of her). Kate and Maggie are still doing great. Our only complaint there is that Maggie seems to be speeding into her terrible two’s a few months early. I am still looking for a part time job so we won’t have to live quite so month to month. But for the most part we have been really blessed in our transition here. Here is our prayer list for this month:

That God would bring the pastors who are in this area who need community and restoration to find out and inquire about joining these groups
That we would be approved to rent our house and God would bless the family that moves in
That God would fortify our faith and give us encouragement to be bold and steadfast in our calling here
That I would be able to find part-time work that would help us alleviate some of our financial burden
That through part-time work and/or support we would be able to afford health care for our family in the near future
That I would have wisdom and steadfastness in the development of our philosophy of counseling and scope of practice
That God would begin to provide the ways and means to acquire and begin developing the property so we can start receiving pastors for restoration from crisis

I want to praise God for opening up the option for our house to be rented. It was beginning to look like we were going to have a negative outcome, and God completely surprised us by opening an unexpected door. I also praise God for what we feel will become our home church, Christ Community Church in Kennesaw. God has really given us several signs that this could be the church for our family. Finally I want to praise God for the many wonderful things he has allowed us to accomplish and experience through our work in this ministry so far. I pray that those of you who read these updates and keep up with Melissa and I will find encouragement from them, and that God blesses you in the mission of your daily lives. I would love to hear from you by phone or e-mail if you have any questions, comments or just want to catch up. Don’t forget to check out my blog at www.gracevalleyministries.org over the coming weeks if you would like to stay up to date on what’s going on until my next update.

We are finishing up our second month here in Canton Georgia. Things are moving along. It is weird how while you are in the midst of events it feels like they are going slowly, but as you look back to reflect on them you can’t believe how swiftly things have happened.

Our two little girls are doing really well. Kate and Maggie love playing with Grandma, Grandpa and Great Grandma. Maggie is beginning to say more words (lots of “uh oh’s”), which is a lot of fun to be a part of. Melissa has decided she will be home schooling Kate for Pre-K. Kate is super excited and loves doing school. Kate even went last week and got her own library card and seems to have checked out half of the children’s section. We will be back in Memphis the first week of September for Kate’s orthodontist appointment. We are looking forward to a nice time to re-connect and fellowship with family and friends.

Melissa meanwhile has started working as a tutor and already has four students she is helping prepare for the SAT. I am still looking for a part-time counseling job to bring in some income and begin work on my professional licensure in the state of Georgia. Our director, Phil, and I will be starting up a youth/associate pastors’ group in the next couple of weeks. We are looking forward to facilitating the process of these church leaders connecting across denominations and renewing each other in faith and in relationship. I have taken on the task of looking for applicable grants that could help Grace Valley get on stronger financial footing while looking for God to bless our vision and future projects. We also have our next event in the works. We are planning a “Morning of Solitude” for the second Saturday in September. We are inviting pastors, prayer partners, and others in the Christian community to come out and spend a morning of quiet devotion and prayer with God. We have many things that we ask you to pray for this month:

That I would be able to find part-time work that would meet our financial need while also helping me work toward professional licensure

That our house in Memphis would sell soon so that we will no longer feel its financial burden

That God would fortify our faith and give us encouragement to be bold and steadfast in our calling here

That Kate’s appointment goes well and our trip to Memphis is safe

That through part-time work and/or support we would be able to afford health care for our family in the near future

That our new pastors’ group goes well and is an encouragement to the church leadership in this community

That our “Morning of Solitude” will be a blessing and refreshment to the souls of all who attend

We thank God for many answered prayers. It was a relatively pain-free process to get our licenses, tags, and car insurance switched to Georgia. We also feel like we are close to settling down to a new church home (hopefully I will be able to write about that next month). We cannot tell you how blessed we are to have people like you praying for us and keeping track of our progress in this adventure. I would love to hear from you by phone or e-mail if you have any questions or just want to catch up. Don’t forget to check out my blog at www.gracevalleyministries.org over the coming weeks if you would like to stay up to date on what’s going on until my next update.